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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

skink.

A shin of beef.

5 characters1 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/skɪŋk/General-American, Received-Pronunciation
  1. A shin of beef.

    Northern-England · Scotland
    lean sirloin, skink and pot-roast
  2. A soup or pottage made from a boiled shin of beef.

    Scotland · obsolete
  3. Usually preceded by a descriptive word: a soup or pottage made using other ingredients.

    Scotland · broadly
    Cullen skink
Where this word comes from

Possibly from Middle Low German schink, schinke, schenke (“leg; shank; shin bone; ham”), from Old Saxon skinka, from Proto-West Germanic *skinkō (“shank; thigh; that which is bent”), from Proto-Germanic *skinkô, from Proto-Indo-European *(s)keng- (“to limp; to be crooked, slant”). The word is cognate with Danish skinke (“ham”), Middle Dutch schenke, schinke (“shin; hough; ham”), Icelandic skinka (“ham”), Norwegian skinke (“ham”), Old English ġesċincio, ġesċinco (“kidney fat”), Old High German skinka, skinko (“shank; shin bone”) (Middle High German schinke (“shank; shin bone; ham”), modern German Schinken (“ham; pork from the hindquarters”)), Old Saxon skinka (“ham”), Old Swedish skinke (modern Swedish skinka (“ham”)).

noun/skɪŋk/General-American, Received-Pronunciation
  1. A lizard of the family Scincidae, having small or reduced limbs or none at all and long tails that are regenerated when shed; a sandfish.

Where this word comes from

From Middle French scinc, from Latin scincus, from Ancient Greek σκίγγος (skíngos), σκίγκος (skínkos).

verb/skɪŋk/General-American, Received-Pronunciation
  1. To serve (a drink).

    Scotland · ambitransitive
  2. To give (something) as a present.

    Northern-England · Scotland · obsolete · transitive
Where this word comes from

From Middle English skinken, skynken, skenken, from Middle Dutch scinken, scenken, schenken and/or Old Norse skenkja, both from Proto-Germanic *skankijaną. Cognate with German schenken (“to give as a present”), Dutch schenken (“to pour, give as a present”). See also the inherited doublet shink.

noun/skɪŋk/General-American, Received-Pronunciation
  1. A drink.

    obsolete
Where this word comes from

From Middle English skinken, skynken, skenken, from Middle Dutch scinken, scenken, schenken and/or Old Norse skenkja, both from Proto-Germanic *skankijaną. Cognate with German schenken (“to give as a present”), Dutch schenken (“to pour, give as a present”). See also the inherited doublet shink.

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.